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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Ziran: The Philosophy of Spontaneous Self-Causation

Ziran: The Philosophy of Spontaneous Self-Causation

Bruya, Brian

Paperback

Series: Suny Chinese Philosophy and Culture

PhilosophyTaoism

ISBN10: 1438488300
ISBN13: 9781438488301
Publisher: St Univ Of New York Pr
Published: Jan 2 2023
Pages: 166
Weight: 0.56
Height: 0.39 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

The ancient concept of spontaneous self-causation (ziran) from Daoism opens a path to understanding human action as self-organizing, attention as effortless, and art as somatic.

Ziran, an idea from ancient Daoism, defies easy translation into English but can almost be captured by the term spontaneity. It means self-causation, if self is understood as fundamentally plural, and causation is understood as sensitivity and responsiveness. Applying ziran to the fields of action theory, attention theory, and aesthetics, Brian Bruya uses easy-to-read, straightforward prose to show, step-by-step, how this philosophical concept from an ancient tradition can be used to advance theory today. Incorporated into contemporary philosophy of action, ziran opens us to the notion of movement and action as self-organizing. Incorporated into contemporary cognitive science, ziran opens us to the possibility of effortless attention, contrary to the reigning paradigm. Incorporated into contemporary aesthetics, ziran opens us to a new category of art-somatic art-and a new, refined understanding of improvisation.

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